The Analytical Core facility will provide an essential I ink between the structural and biochemical studies proposed and application to diabetes. Additionally, this facility will provide a centralized resource. that will exploit existing technologies, previously established in the Taylor, Scott, Newton, and Olefsky laboratories and the Multi-Scale Imaging Core to expand the number and types of assays available for each laboratory to study signaling in diabetes. Therefore, the core will provide an essential point of synergy where al 1 laboratories will work together and ask critical questions about the molecular mechanisms underlying the diabetic state. This core, overseen by Drs. Taylor and King, will consist of four functional sub-units; protein expression, crystallography, proteomics/phosphoproteomics, and peptide arrays. The Analytical Core will provide the researchers in this Program Project Grant with 1)so luble, purified, recombinant proteins for structure-function studies; 2) a centralized resource for protein crystallization, data colle cation, phase determination, model building, and structure refinement; 3) ma ss spectrometry services . to map phosphorylation sites on proteins, identify proteins from crude and purified cellular fractionation experiments, define temporal protein -protein interactions, and quantitate protein expression; and 4) p eptide array technology to probe proteins of interest in molecular detail t o define interaction sites between proteins and generate 'super-binder' peptides? that can be used to manipulate signaling.